Jul 20, 20182 min read

Something in Linen

Let's travel back in time to Me Made May.

In my plans post I challenged myself to sew something in linen for my summer wardrobe. I had my eyes on the Camber Set A-lined dress from Merchant & Mills. After much hemming and hawing about the price of the pattern I realized I already had a pretty similar pattern in my stash — and one I'd already sewn it before: the Ottobre pintuck dress (5/2008).

The gray color was also out when I found a lovely aqua-colored linen in the local fabric store. Perfect cool color for the summer!

Comparing the Ottobre Pintuck Dress with The Camber Set

With a few modifications the pintuck dress could quite easily be turned into a much simpler, streamlined design. I loved the back yoke detail in the Camber Set dress. This was pretty similar to the front yoke of the Ottobre dress so I definitely wanted to keep that.

And while I love the photo of the long haired woman modeling the dark gray Camber Set dress, I realized an A-lined dress is not flattering on me. I have a narrow waist and wanted to accentuate that: the waist ties of the Ottobre dress where another feature that I wanted to include.

The pintucks — while cute — took so long last time I ditched them and instead did a simple gather at the front. The sleeves had elastic and a rolled hem, two techniques that also took quite a while to sew. I opted for a much simple sleeve look like the ones on the Camber Set.

I did a bit of reading on the Camber Set and found that a few people online had trouble with getting the neckline to go over their heads since there's no zipper. There was one in the Ottobre dress but the neckline is so wide it isn't really necessary.

When I originally sewed the pintuck pattern in 2016 I was already planning on making another one but simplifying the sewing process on the back piece:

If I were to make this project again, I would simplify the back and cut the hem and back yoke pieces as one.

With the removal of the zipper this cut down the number of seams on the back piece from three to none. Me likey. One final simplification was to finish the neckline with facings instead of bias tape.